He was one of four or five brothers,--and all
besides him were in trade. They had prospered in trade, whereas he
had prospered solely in politics; and men said that he was dependent
altogether on what his relatives supplied for his support. He had now
been in Parliament for more than twenty years, and had been known not
only as a Radical but as a Democrat. Ten years since, when he had
risen to fame, but not to repute, among the men who then governed
England, nobody dreamed that Joshua Monk would ever be a paid servant
of the Crown. He had inveighed against one minister after another
as though they all deserved impeachment. He had advocated political
doctrines which at that time seemed to be altogether at variance
with any possibility of governing according to English rules of
government. He had been regarded as a pestilent thorn in the sides of
all ministers. But now he was a member of the Cabinet, and those whom
he had terrified in the old days began to find that he was not so
much unlike other men. There are but few horses which you cannot put
into harness, and those of the highest spirit will generally do your
work the best.
Phineas, who had his eyes about him, thought that he could perceive
that Mr. Palliser did not shoot a deer with Mr.
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